As respiratory therapists, patient safety must always be top of mind as you care for patients. With Patient Safety Awareness Week happening Mar. 13-19, 2022, now is the perfect time to discuss how RTs can promote patient safety within their institutions.
Tips to keep patient safety a priority
- Volunteer to serve on your hospital’s safety committee.
- Improve the monitoring of a patient’s respiratory status when receiving sedation medications.
- Report near-misses, close-calls, and adverse events to your risk management or patient safety leaders. (Read a General Counsel regarding risk management.)
- Provide input into patient safety activities related to respiratory care services.
- Help create better processes for your patients that consider human factors that may lead to errors.
Tools you can use
The AARC has some great tools we can all use to help our hospitals in their mission to ensure safe care, including three Patient Safety Checklists. These checklists assist RTs in the providing optimum care for patients at risk of oxygen desaturation during transport within the hospital.
AARC University offers a wide variety of course options to help you improve daily care and learn best practices.
Consult your colleagues on AARConnect. Here is where you can pose questions, share your expertise and experiences, all for the betterment of patient care.
Email newsroom@aarc.org with questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you.
